 Editor in Chief Bill   | 18 Jun 2019 11:13 a.m. PST |
You were asked – TMP link If someone were to someday create a Mount Rushmore-style monument to miniature wargaming, who should be depicted on the monument? (Assume room for five.) And in the final round of voting: 20% of the votes: "Donald Featherstone"
17%: "H.G. Wells"
14%: "Gary Gygax"
9%: "Phil Barker"
9%: "Jack Scruby" |
| Northern Monkey | 18 Jun 2019 11:46 a.m. PST |
Doesn't say much for the hobby when the last person to qualify for this is 86 years old and the rest are all dead. |
| mghFond | 18 Jun 2019 11:50 a.m. PST |
Yeah but how many of the gentleman on Rushmore were alive when they got carved out there? I think it is a good list of wargaming famous folk. |
robert piepenbrink  | 18 Jun 2019 12:44 p.m. PST |
It's a hobby, Monkey, not a fashion. The people who set up the fundamentals of sports, literature or drama have been dead a lot longer. |
| Northern Monkey | 18 Jun 2019 2:02 p.m. PST |
Thank you for informing me of that. I just find it a bit sad that the result seems so backward looking. It all rather points to a dying hobby, which isn't what I see when I go round the conventions and shows. These people are important, but the hobby didn't finish evolving in 1985. |
| BillyNM | 18 Jun 2019 2:03 p.m. PST |
Wow I'm surprised that Peter Gilder didn't make it, he's my wargaming muse. I'd also go with the Don but add Duncan MacFarlane who's wargaming magazines have never been equalled in my opinion. Both Miniature Wargames and Wargames Illustrated were classics that lost their way without him. Obviously, as an Anglo, mine is very Anglo-centric perspective |
| 14th NJ Vol | 18 Jun 2019 3:25 p.m. PST |
Me ! I'm the pile of rubble under the sculptures. Kind of how my battles turn out, rubble. How about Scotty Bowden & John Hill, Rich Hasenauer. |
 20thmaine | 18 Jun 2019 4:19 p.m. PST |
Once the hobby became well established it was hard for anyone to make such a groundbreaking contribution. There are plenty of good candidates from today – but mostly their influence is less. In the UK no-one got started in the hobby without Don Featherstone, Tony Bath (who I'd swap in to replace Wells) and Phil Barker. And that includes the founders and all the original rule designers of Games Workshop (fairly influential company). Gary Gygax admitted a debt to Tony Bath – and all of today's RPGs rode into town on D&D's success. I thought it was a good list if it had to be limited to just 5 – the hobby as we know it now wouldn't exist without the groundwork these guys did. |
| Lucius | 18 Jun 2019 5:41 p.m. PST |
Surely a top sculptor should make it, since it is a hobby about toy soldiers. Put one of the Perry twins on it, and it will count double. |
| von Schwartz | 18 Jun 2019 6:32 p.m. PST |
From: Northern Monkey
Doesn't say much for the hobby when the last person to qualify for this is 86 years old and the rest are all dead No offense dude but the young and the living are rarely, if ever, actually "memorialized" as the definition means to 'preserve the memory of' if you're still alive you're still making memories. |
| Garryowen | 19 Jun 2019 6:58 a.m. PST |
I was glad to see Jack Scruby there. In the U.S., he was definitely the most important. The hobby has developed tremendously from what he did. But he did it first. He got the ball rolling here. There were many others, of course, but none of Jack's contemporaries had the impact he did. He had no predecessor. Tom |
 McLaddie | 26 Jun 2019 2:19 p.m. PST |
Doesn't say much for the hobby when the last person to qualify for this is 86 years old and the rest are all dead. Well, all of the ones on the actual Mt. Rushmore are dead for more than 86 years, and I don't think that is some mark against the good ol' U.S.of A…  |
| Bowman | 27 Jun 2019 10:43 a.m. PST |
It all rather points to a dying hobby……. No it doesn't. It shows that the hobby is old enough that the founding fathers are either dead or very old. |
